Stories · Family and hope

Life beyond the scoreboard: Juan Cuadrado and the faith that came home

7 min read, approximately

The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.Psalms 34:18 (Nearness) · WEB

Before the stadium, an absence

Before his name appeared in great stadiums, Juan Guillermo Cuadrado was a Colombian child who lost his father. ESPN’s profile places that loss at the age of four and recalls how his mother, Marcela, became the family’s financial support. Bereavement also changed the way each day had to be faced.

We will not reconstruct the death as a scene we could have witnessed. Published accounts do not allow us to assign responsibility here with certainty. This story needs no added accusation to acknowledge the seriousness of what a child lost.

When a famous athlete’s life is told, every difficulty can easily become the first step on an inevitable staircase toward success. But absence is not training. A family does not need to suffer to deserve a future. Before speaking of the player, we should leave room for the child whose life changed without his choosing it.

The psalm opening this page speaks of nearness to the brokenhearted. It does not turn loss into something good. From the perspective of faith, it reminds us that a wounded person does not fall outside God’s care and should not fall outside ours either.

A mother kept the horizon open

Semana’s interview with Jeins Durán, who collaborated on the autobiography, recalls Marcela’s work on banana plantations and her son’s departure for a football opportunity in Barranquilla. The writer investigated places and interviewed people around Cuadrado to reconstruct that journey.

Behind the trip stood a relationship, not simply sporting ambition. Leaving was connected to a desire to improve their shared life. We do not need to reproduce the autobiography’s dialogue to understand the tension of a farewell: someone leaves seeking an opportunity, and someone remains without knowing how it will turn out.

In that scene, his mother is not a supporting character destined to applaud when trophies arrive. Her work belongs to the conditions that made continuing possible. The story of effort also belongs to those who sustain a household while someone else tries to find a way forward.

Recognizing that support does not mean claiming every family has the same opportunities. Some work with equal dedication and never find a similar opening. Gratitude can remember the hands that helped without turning a favorable outcome into a measure of anyone else’s worth. The people who carried ordinary responsibilities deserve a place in the account too.

The journey came without a guarantee

On Caracol Radio, Cuadrado recalled going hungry during football trials in Argentina and considering a return to Colombia. Opportunity also had a difficult underside.

That brief memory interrupts an overly comfortable reading of his progress. Viewed from the present, a well-known career appears organized around dates and contracts. For the person living it, a trial may end without an answer, and a journey may open more questions than it resolves. Talent does not make uncertainty disappear.

We do not know every night of that period, and there is no need to invent them. It is enough to hear that he experienced need and considered returning. Thinking about going home does not make anyone a coward. Sometimes it is a responsible decision; sometimes it is a question worked through with guidance and support.

Cuadrado’s story continued in professional football. Our reading must nevertheless avoid promising a young person that perseverance always leads to a comparable career. Their life’s value does not depend on sporting selection. Hope needs to be wider than one doorway, even when that doorway fills all our dreams and seems to contain everything we want.

A conversation opened another reading of life

In his Semana interview, Cuadrado credited Jackson Martínez with a role in his approach to faith. He explained that he began reading the Bible and described his relationship with Jesus as something he would not exchange. This is personal testimony, not an explanation of every sporting result.

Here the story’s center changes. It is no longer only about joining a team or reaching a visible goal. Another question appears: what kind of person are we becoming while pursuing those goals? A contract may alter living conditions; it does not by itself answer every need of the heart.

Bible reading should not be presented as a formula for winning matches. In our reflection, it opens room to examine priorities, learn and acknowledge mistakes. Following Christ does not release us from responsibility for our decisions. It can help us accept that responsibility more truthfully, without pretending we have nothing left to learn.

This passage accompanies that reflection; we do not claim Cuadrado quoted it in the conversation:

Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge;2 Peter 1:5 · WEB

Faith and learning do not appear as enemies. The road remains open, even when other people assume that we have already arrived.

Home has a different scoreboard

In a 2019 conversation published by El Tiempo from ¡HOLA!, Cuadrado emphasized the joy of returning to his wife and children. Melissa highlighted the place Jesus held in his life. This is the portrait they offered then, not a guarantee of family perfection.

The difference between a stadium and a home helps us read that testimony. In the stadium, assists, minutes and goals can be counted. At home, care cannot be reduced to statistics. Presence, listening, repair after mistakes and patience that nobody broadcasts all matter.

We do not therefore need to imagine a household without difficulties to recognize the importance of wanting to be present. A public declaration of love acquires continuity through ordinary decisions. Admiration for testimony should not prevent us from remembering that every relationship needs freedom, respect and responsibility.

For the reader, the question may be close at hand: what do people receive from us when we stop performing before others? Christian life does not end where the lights go out. It is also learned in that space where a famous name ceases to be important and the person standing before us matters again. Such care has value even when it brings no public recognition.

So another child can find companionship

Cuadrado’s foundation dates its beginning to 2013 and describes education combining sport, art and values with attention to children and families. Its programs page includes psychosocial support, home visits and parenting education. These are institutional descriptions, not an independent assessment of their outcomes.

That horizon lets us close the story without confining it to one person’s achievements. A difficult childhood does not oblige anyone to establish an organization, but it can awaken attention toward other children. Respectful help need not promise that every child will become a star; it recognizes that each deserves care even if they never do.

Faith in Jesus Christ appears here through testimony to a personal relationship and an orientation toward relationships that matter. It does not erase his father’s death or allow us to assign a divine intention retrospectively to every difficulty. Nor does it require treating professional success as evidence of spiritual superiority.

What remains is a Colombian story of loss, support, searching and responsibility. Its final question is not how many trophies we can obtain. It asks what we will do with the life we have, the hands that supported us and the person who still needs companionship. Sometimes beginning to answer is as simple and as demanding as being present, listening and helping without asking for an extraordinary result in return.

May God continue to bless you, and may you have a wonderful day in Jesus Christ!
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